MIDLAND CITY, Ala. 
Speaking into a 4-inch-wide ventilation pipe, hostage negotiators tried Thursday to talk a man into releasing a kindergartner and ending a standoff in an underground bunker that stretched into its third day.

The man identified by multiple neighbors and witnesses as retired truck driver Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was accused of pulling the boy from a school bus on Tuesday and killing the driver. The man and boy were holed up in a small room on his property that authorities compared to tornado shelters common in the area.

James Arrington, police chief of the neighboring town of Pinckard, said the shelter was about 4 feet underground, with about 6-by-8 feet of floor space and a PVC pipe that negotiators were speaking through. There were signs the standoff could continue for some time: A state legislator said the shelter has electricity, food and TV. The police chief said the captor has been sleeping and told negotiators he’s spent long periods in the shelter before. “He will have to give up sooner or later because (authorities) are not leaving,” Arrington said. “It’s pretty small, but he’s been known to stay in there eight days.”

Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper said he’s been briefed by law enforcement and visited with the boy’s parents. He said the boy is “crying for his parents” who are “holding up good. They are praying and asking all of us to pray.”

Republican Rep. Steve Clouse, who represents the Midland City area, said he visited the boy’s mother Thursday and that she is “hanging on by a thread.”

“Everybody is praying with her for the boy,” he said.

Clouse said the mother told him the boy has Asperger’s syndrome, an autism-like disorder, as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Police have been delivering medication to him through the pipe, he said.

The normally quiet red clay road leading to the bunker was teeming Thursday with more than a dozen police cars and trucks, a fire truck, a helicopter, officers from multiple agencies, news media and at least one ambulance near Midland City, population 2,300.

As night fell and temperatures dipped into the low 40s, police and other emergency workers wore heavy coats outside a small church being used as a command post. Neighbors said Dykes had a small heater in the bunker.

Overhead, a small aircraft with blinking lights flew wide circles high above the man’s property.

Dykes was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who neighbors said once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.

The chief confirmed Dykes held anti-government views, as described by multiple neighbors: “He’s against the government — starting with Obama on down.”

“He doesn’t like law enforcement or the government telling him what to do,” he said. “He’s just a loner.”

Authorities say the gunman boarded a stopped school bus Tuesday afternoon and demanded two boys between 6 and 8 years old. When the driver tried to block his way, the gunman shot him several times and took a 5-year-old boy off the bus.

No motive has been discussed by investigators, but the police chief said the FBI had evidence suggesting it could be considered a hate crime. Federal authorities have not released any details about the standoff or the investigation.